After Effects
by The Penumbra
Summary: A series of drabbles,unrelated and not in chronological order. Ch12. It's doubtful that this was the end Light planned. Set after the end of the anime.
1. The Unknown: Ryuuk

**Disclaimer:** Because I don't own Death Note or any of the characters... meh

**Title:** After Effects

**A/N: **A series of Death Note drabbles. Not necessarily in chronological order, and not related to each other. Set after the end of the anime.

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**I. The Unknown**

He would have liked to share the last joke with Light, but it was prohibited; anyway, he doubted Light would have found it that funny – humans were particularly touchy when it came to their life span, even Light who (_and Ryuuk couldn't have thought of a higher compliment_) had a sense of humour benefiting a Death God.

Still, Ryuuk thought it was pretty funny that really it wouldn't have made much difference whether Near had caught him or not. After all, he had only one year, seven months and three days more to live.

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	2. Wonder: Matsuda

**Disclaimer:** The usual applies. Alas! Still no letters telling me I own Death Note...

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**II. Wonder**

_'One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. The bamboozle has captured us. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.'_

- Carl Sagan

¬¬¬

Poor Matusuda is nursing a shot of what.. whiskey? vodka? rum? He's long forgotten what he's ordered in this seedy bar where he spends his time off-duty. Matsuda drinks and wonders what his life would have been like if he'd simply become an elementary school teacher – _he was seduced by the flashy cop lifestyle on tv and the excitement it promised. _

He could have married his first steady girlfriend, Riza? Reika? Rem? – One of those names belonged to a shinigami he was sure… h_e can barely remember his own name with the alcohol he's piled in._ Instead he chose the police academy over her, with her dark hair and ready smile, and he ended up loosing everything, _everything_, especially his faith in the world.

Matsuda wonders if he'd have shot Light if he hadn't loved the boy and his father, _venerated_ his superiors – _like others worshipped Kira, he thinks wryly when not completely drunk_ – if he hadn't felt so betrayed and lost when he realised that foolish, gullible Matsuda had been taken for a ride.

He knows he'd be dead if he hadn't acted fast, but when he looks at the decadent world around him, he wonders if he made the right choice.

Matsuda doesn't really sleep at night anymore.

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Comments?


	3. Entertainment: Ryuuk, Near

**Disclaimer:** If I owned Death Note, Near would not exist.

**A/N:** Hmm... Many people actually made it to the second drabble if the number of hits is anything to go by, more than I actually expected. So thanks for reading! Leaving a review would also be appreciated though :p Thank you to the two who kindly left their comments :D

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**III. Entertainment**

Near – _or rather N, that's the name he's known with now_ - is in the middle of discussing a case with the police, when his eyes widen and he clutches his chest and falls to the floor. It's exactly three years (down to the last second) when Yagami Light, or Kira died.

The concerned agents mill around unable to believe their eyes. L's successor has just died of a heart attack, in the manner of Kira victims.

Panic ensues, and Ryuuk watches them as suspicion and distrust break the fold, and a new Kira is searched for. He grins as his gaze falls on the last name he's scratched out on his notebook.

It was a matter of logic. Ryuuk figured that with Light being dead and all, it didn't matter if he did away with Near. Anyway, he had a bone to pick with the little twerp. He had effectively taken away the only amusing thing Ryuuk had seen for years. Truth was he missed Light. But if Light wasn't there, the next best thing was for Ryuuk to create his own amusement.

He sits back and watches the show, dedicating his victims to Light's memory. After all, it was Light who made Ryuuk realise how much _fun_ could actually be had from the damned death note.

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You _know_ you want to leave a comment. :p 


	4. Legacy: Yagami Sayu

**Disclaimer:** If DN were mine, L and Light would be best friends and rule the world together for ever and ever.

**A/N:** Enjoy, and thank you for your reviews. Season's Greetings to you all! ;)

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**IV. Legacy**

When Yagami Sayu finds the black notebook on her bed, she wonders vaguely whether it's another of her mother's surprise gifts meant brighten her mood. When she looks at it more closely, she feels sure it isn't. It's dark and weird and her mother would find something like that tasteless, and anyway, she goes out of her way not to mention anything to do with death in front of her daughter.

Sayu frowns at the book. It's in English, not her best subject, but she's bored, and thinks that maybe it will distract her for a while. She translates each word painstakingly and pauses at the end. She decides it's a stupid thing and leaves it to watch television, but she can't concentrate.

Something draws her back to it. She traces the title with her finger and toys with her pen.

_Death Note. _

She's curious. Almost as a joke, she writes the name of a man on the telly who's pro-fucking Kira. _Kira_. The reason her father and adored older brother are nothing but scattered ashes. _Bastard, _she thinks as she glares at the television and finishes scribbling his name.

When she sees him clutch his at his heart and fall down dead, Sayu freezes.

Mouth dry and heart beating wildly, she glances from the book to the screen, from the screen to the book. He died.

Hands trembling, she slowly writes down the names of her demons, the men who survived, the officers who were supposed to protect her brother but had failed him, those who had come to apologise to her and her mother after his death, as though that could _mean _something.

The next day she listens to the news and learns that three highly respected police-officers died simultaneously of heart attacks.

Sayu smiles for the first time in two years and a Death God smirks in the shadows.

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Slightly longer, but what the heck. Wonder how Sayu would react to a shinigami grinning at her? 


	5. Martyr: Amane Misa

**Disclaimer: **Usual applies!

**A/N:** Poor Misa

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**V. Martyr**

All the newspapers and television stations broadcast the news that Amane Misa, more affectionately known to her fans as Misa-Misa had committed suicide by throwing herself off a twenty storey building minutes after the end of her new movie, which promised to be a summer blockbuster. Rumours had it that Misa-Misa had been rather moody and depressed of late, but no one thought she would kill herself.

They wouldn't have understood the compelling power of a small scrap of paper with a short note scribbled on it in large loopy handwriting:

_Amane Misa, suicide by jumping off a building, 13__th__ October at 7:45pm._

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If anyone's interested in a different version of how Misa committed suicide, do check out another of my fics - **Wedding Night.** Very different from your run-of the mill jumping off buildings, as above ;) Comments welcome! Oh, and I just pulled that date randomly. If anyone has the exact date, I'd be grateful. :)


	6. Lies: Light

**Disclaimer:** Not yet mine alas!

**A/N: **A little screen-time for a dead Light. Poor boy, so very dead...

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**VI. Lies**

_Humans who use the Death Note shall go neither to heaven nor hell._

Light would have laughed if he could. He wished he could ask Ryuuk what he'd call spending eternity in nothingness, alone with regrets and fears dancing at the edge of conciousness, tormenting yourself with what could have been and what _should_ have been,

Light's a genius and he knows the answer.

It's called _hell_.

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Review please? 


	7. Faith: Misora Naomi

**Disclaimer:** I amuse myself with what could have been, but I don't own DN... yet.

**Summary:** Misora Naomi had a mother.

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**VII. Faith**

She waited for days for the phone-call that never came. Still now, she still waits and hopes.

She still believes that her daughter, her beautiful, smart Naomi, who had a bright future in front of her, would one day come back.

She's the only one.

Her husband, grown old and grey, does not talk about her anymore, and thinks of his child as dead, and mourns her. Her friends have stopped calling, and have moved on. The whole family avoids the subject, and the police have given her up as lost. But she won't give up.

She _won't._

¬¬¬

At night, careful not to wake her husband, she creeps downstairs to her small studio in darkness. She locks the door behind her and searches for the matches to light the candles. Placing them in front of the small figure of the faceless deity of justice, she bows low, her forehead touching the ground.

'Glory be to Kira,' she whispers and starts the litany of prayers of the church of Kira, the god who offers tangible hope for a better world. And as an ending to her prayers, before she hides the evidence of her worship and returns like a thief to her cold bed, she makes her final entirety.

'Kira, god of Justice,' she begs brokenly, hands clasped together and tears trickling down her face, 'Please, _please_ bring my Naomi back.'

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Poor woman. As far as I know, Naomi's remains were never even found.

Reviews (such a rarity these days alas...) are most welcome :)


	8. Replacement: Ryuuk

Disclaimer: Doesn't belong to me!

A/N: Sorry for the delay, am drowning in exams on this side of the screen... Thank you for your comments D

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**VIII. Replacement**

Ryuuk eyed her speculatively as she crouched obsessively over the thin pages, painstakingly writing down word after word. She wasn't quite what he expected, what with her being a myopic old hag and living in a small cluttered apartment with a cat called Tibbles. Still, if the rapt attention she was giving to the Death Note was anything to go by, she might share some spirit of justice with his pet human... though she might also have alot of vendettas.

Maybe, though she seemed unlikely after the polished perfection that was Light, he had found a successor to amuse him. Time to make his presence felt though anyway. He had a particularly nifty line he was dying - dying, him! ha! - to try out. Well then,

Lights.

Camera.

Action!

Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as he stepped out of the shadows, grinning like a death's head. Tibbles hissed and fled under the cupboard and she jerked her head to look at him. She shrieked as her pen fell out of her hand, watery eyes bulging out of their sockets as he loomed over her.

'Fear me, mortal,' he thundered, 'For I am...I am...' his voice trailed away as her face took the colour of putty and she clutched at her heart. Wordlessly, she slid of her chair and fell to the floor.

Ryuuk paused as he took in the scene.

She died without having the decency to let him write her name in his notebook. _And_ she'd ruined his entry. He was miffed.

'Damn human,' he muttered as he stepped over her body to pick up the Death Note. Maybe he should tone down the entrance a little bit when dealing with the elderly and their dicky hearts.

Ah well, he thought as he flipped open the notebook to check her count, at least he'd given her the time to wreck a little bit of havoc. But when his gaze fell on the spidery hand-writing, detailing the weight of sugar which had to go into the apple cake, and the amount of vanilla drops to be added and such ilk, Ryuuk _knew_, there was someone laughing at him up there.

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Cause um... being an old Japanese lady she couldn't read English and finding an empty notebook where she could write her recipes was a bonus... and it made sense to me :p Bear with me, i'm in the middle of finals! 

Poor Ryuuk. A replacement for Light won't be easy to find. Comments wanted:)


	9. Temptation: Near

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. I write merely for amusement.

**A/N: **I'm slowly running out of steam... I plan to wrap this up after another three drabbles, making it twelve drabbles in all. Thank you so much for your comments, you've been very encouraging:D

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**IX. Temptation**

It's different of course. Light was a misguided man who believed he had the power over life and death, who believed he was _god_. Near has no such beliefs. He doesn't believe in a god anyway, and really, he doesn't care about justice and truth and all that rubbish spewed forth by Kira. It's a question of completing the puzzle, of winning the game. He only thinks about _it_ as a _backup plan_. _Everyone_ knows that's essential to be sure of a win, especially when all the odds are against you.

Such as now for instance, when this man, Muto Toya - _he calls himself X, the bastard, in a direct challenge to N -_ keeps evading the police, interpol, even Near himself! and keeps killing and creating chaos and laughing at them.

Three years.

Three tortuous years since the elusive X had challenged them, challenged _him_ and they are no nearer to catching him than they were at the start. They have everything, photographs, names, fingerprints, contacts, spies... and he slips through their fingers everytime.

Near touches the thin scrap of paper - _a scrap of the Death Note, it's a backup plan, nothing else_ - as he stars at the screen broadcasting the news that X has struck again. And as a cold, burning rage fills him at the sight of his nemesis who's thwarted him for so long, he thinks that it would be so easy to write his name... so very easy...

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I'm sorry for any mistakes, this was written in a bit of a rush! Comments wlecome!


	10. Irony: Aizawa

**Disclaimer:** Death Note doesn't belong to me.

**A/N: **Thank you to all those who reviewed the last drabble. You made my day! The next two chapters (I was planning on three, but depends on how it goes) will be on L and Light, a sort of requiem, if you like. Enjoy!

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**X. Irony**

'_The mills of god grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small'_

-Charles A. Beard-

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Aizawa, that upright, moralistic man, who knows he did the right thing, who knows that Kira Was Wrong and Had To Be Stopped watches the files on his desk multiply as crimes increase, but knows that there could have been no other way. He _knows_ that what happened is Right and Just.

Ryuuk, who still watches the members of the old crew when he feel like it, laughs his head off when Aizawa guns down the burgler who broke into his apartment and raped and shot his wife and child. Talk about two tapes, two measures.

And the last face Aizawa sees before he turns the gun on himself, isn't that of his wife, nor of his daughter, but the mocking face of a triumphant Kira, a Kira who has gained another unwitting disciple. The broken and defeated Aizawa laughs as he pulls the trigger, laughs and cries at the irony of it all.

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Poor man. I never really did like him though. Ff. net is _destroying _my editing. :growls:


	11. Eternal: L

**Disclaimer:** Death Note and any recognisable characters do not belong to me.

**A/N:** To Ai Priestess, who requested a chapter on L and thus made me rack my brains for a half-decent idea. :D Perhaps it's not quite what you expected; but hopefully, enjoy:)

The next chapter will be the last, I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I had writing it. :)

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**XI. Eternal**

_When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place. _

- Pearl S. Buck

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There was a child before the man, a little boy who stared at the world with wide inquisitive eyes before growing up into a man who analysed and dissected the world with a look. Because people have a beginning and an end; they do not simply appear.

_L Lawliet._ A strange name for a strange boy with a cold intellect and a insatiable craving for sugar. He was a genius, the best Wammy's house had ever known and perhaps, ever would know. He did have a history, a life before he became one of _them_, children whom destiny and Quillish Wammy had connived to raise in that orphanage which cultivated prodigies, but that was lost the instant he discarded his name.

_L. _In the transition from child to man, L Lawliet – that orphaned child, an emotionless little creature who devoured knowledge voraciously and who never really learnt how to play – ceased to exist, and there was only L. Sometimes there was Enrico, Hamish, Paul, Dimitri, Sum and yes, even Ryuuzaki, but these were only names, as meaningless as Lawliet, to be discarded when no longer useful.

There was L, only L.

But people have an end, and so, it wasn't L who died when a shinigami scrawled his name on the Death Note. It was L Lawliet - _L Lawliet, a child who never grew up and a man who never was a child- _whom once a mother had cradled in her arms and loved and left, whom Quillish Wammy had taken to his orphanage, whom Yagami Light had respected and whom Kira had defeated, who now lay dead on the ground.

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L's next successor lies on the floor near Roger's desk languidly filling in a crossword puzzle. 'Roger?' he asks, lifting his head slightly, addressing the old man who's reading a sheaf of papers, 'Who was the first L?'

_A wide-eyed boy with a shock of black hair, spidery fingers and a long, gangly body perpetually crouched over his books or computer or a cup of tea overflowing with sugar. _

Roger looks at him in silence for a moment before answering. 'There was no first L,' he replies slowly. The boy frowns, and opens his mouth to protest, but the man forestalls him. 'L is an entity, not a human being,' he explains, because it's his duty to answer such a question. 'Once you become L, you have no past, no future. When you die, L still lives. There is no first or second L. L, simply is.'

'_L,' he says out loud, playing with a jellybean, trying it out. _L_. The skinny boy, with skin of an unhealthy hue and bags under his eyes, nods at Wammy and Roger. 'My own name can be my alias.' _

A pair of eyes look at him shrewdly and he winces internally at the cold, calculating look. 'Like god,' the boy says quietly, 'only one which has to be replaced constantly,' and stands up and leaves before Roger can reply. And it's just as well, because what can he say? That maybe the project he and Quillish had embarked upon, the desire to create the world's best detective was madness in itself, that what they had done was to force these children to forego their right to choose a normal life, imbuing them with the desire to be L so early on, that even with their genius, they couldn't see the trap closing in on them.

Roger sighs. There is no time for regret. Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, even if it involves the sacrifice of a child's life and happiness.

He still remembers the child that was L Lawliet, but _that_ boy isn't L. That unhappy little boy died long ago, as soon as he solved his first case, and now survives only in the memory of an old man; the only one to remember him as he was before his second identity consumed him. And that is as it should be, because to others, L can't afford to be human.

L simply _is – _strong, undefeated and indestructible and if that meant the loss of identity of these children, so be it.

_

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_

_-----L is dead. Long live L.-----_

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That's far longer than I thought it would be... Ah well. It might not make much sense, but nothing about Death Note really is clear at first reading. And L is complex. Terribly complex. And excuse any horrific typos and mixed up tenses, I'm terribly tired. Feel free to point them out. :)

Thank you to those who left comments, you made my day :) I apologise for the whole line-breaks, but there has to be separation between the paragraphs for it to make sense, and is refusing to let me use lines/asterixes/slashes.


	12. Finite: Light

**Disclaimer:** Alas, not mine.

**A/N:** Excuse the many lines :sigh: The last chapter of the series. Thank you for reading!

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**XII. Finite**

_--'Oh, how the mighty have fallen!'--_

_

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_

The house had lain empty for well over two decades before a new family moved in: a thin-lipped, middle-aged woman fresh out of her second divorce and her only daughter, an overweight bespeckled child, the unwanted byproduct of her first marriage. 

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She finds it tucked behind one of the wardrobes, while she's cleaning out her room. It's an old photograph, dusty and faded, showing a stern looking man and a contented looking woman, with two children, a boy and a girl. It's the boy who captures her attention, with his beautiful amber eyes and high cheekbones, and a smile which charms. There are names written on the back: Soichiro, Sachiko, Light and Sayu, a happy united family, so unlike hers.

The girl tries the name out, rolling it under her tongue. _Light_. She likes it, sweet and smooth and full of promise. _Light_. That's must be _him_, because no one else in the picture could live up to such a name.

The photograph is her secret, and she keeps it tucked beneath her mattress so that she can fantasise about this boy and his family, her anchor in her slowly crumbling world. She wonders where this boy is now, if he's married or divorced, if he has children of his own, if life has soured him or been good to him. But in a way, she prefers not to know, so she can think of him as a boy, slightly older than her, crystallised in time, talk to him and imagine that he's her best friend, someone she can love.

She locks herslelf in her room with Light, whenever her mother is yelling at her ex on the phone, when the house reeks of cigarettes and strangers' voices come up from below or when she comes home dishevelled and in tears after another day of being bullied at school

He's her light in this ugly world and she worships him.

He's her god.

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That's what left of Kira and his perfect world. No world free of crime, no triumphant Light to rule, adored and feared by the masses. Only a broken family and bitter memories, a faded photograph and a young girl's dreams, a name -_Kira_- written in the annals of crime, and Light's cremated ashes scattered in the wind.

Well, at least someone still thinks he's a god.

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I've over-awed by the number of hits to each chapter, so thank you to everyone who's read! Comments are welcome, and I'd love to know what you think. This was the last chapter of this series. I hope you enjoyed:)


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